Briefly
the position is this. We have learnt that the exploration of the
external world by the methods of physical science leads not to
a concrete reality, but to a shadow world of symbols, beneath
which those methods are unadapted for penetrating. Feeling that
there must be more behind, we return to our starting point in
human consciousness—
the one centre where more might become known. There we find other
stirrings, other revelations, than those conditioned by the world
of symbols. . . Physics most strongly insists that its methods
do not penetrate behind the symbolism. Surely then that mental
and spiritual nature of ourselves, known in our minds by an intimate
contact transcending the methods of physics, supplies just that.
. . which science is admittedly unable to give.

If
science were truly a method for unrestricted
inquiry into any and every corner of human experience and thought, its
limitations would not be so severe. But the scientific method (as it
is practiced in the current, political climate of scientific materialism)
limits itself to the objective,
and largely steers away from the unrestricted exploration of the subjective
(though some non-mainstream offshoots do try to reconcile the scientific
method with a broader exploration of the subjective, e.g., [Sheldrake,
A New Science of Life; Bohm,
Wholeness and the Implicate Order; Radin,
The Conscious Universe; D'Aquili
and Newberg, The Mystical Mind; Newberg,
D'Aquili, and Rause, Why God Won't Go Away]). Scientific materialism
thus is only really capable of making findings about the objective aspects
of reality. It is not capable of
reaching any ultimate conclusions about subjective reality, because
the very method requires the objectification of what is being studied.
Thus, scientific materialism’s primary philosophical limitation is that
it presumes that objective reality is the only
reality.

The
philosophy of scientific materialism also has political
force in the sense that it tends to enforce itself as the only acceptable
view on reality. Should you or I actually claim that we have seen God,
or that we have come into contact with a Greater Reality, we are likely
to be subjected to ridicule —
either covert or overt; in our contemporary, scientifically materialistic,
Western civilization, all such experiences are immediately interpreted
to be (even hallucinatory) by-products of the material brain, rather
than evidence of a Greater Reality. (However, see our discussion of
neuro-theology,
to witness new scientific evidence that this reduction is invalid.)
Indeed, in the materialistic court of evidence, the sense of our own
existence cannot be adequately justified either!

And
should we claim to believe in a Greater Reality that we have not (yet)
experienced, our right to believe whatever “quaint beliefs” we want
may be acknowledged, but our belief will also be presumed (automatically)
to be solely for the purpose of self-consolation, and to have nothing
to do with reality itself.

The
logic of reductionism is applied repeatedly by the leading scientific
materialistic thinkers of our times. Here are just a few examples, so
you can get a feeling for how the reductionism of scientific materialism
operates.

On
the basis of his clinical studies, Sigmund Freud concluded that the
psychological motivation behind much religious belief is the desire
for consolation or return to the womb. But then he further concluded
—
using the logic of reductionism—
that, since most “religious” people are neurotically motivated to
believe in God, this must mean that God does
not exist. In fact, it is perfectly possibly for God (not
necessarily the God of common belief) to exist and
for large numbers of people to believe in God (or at least a parental
conception of God) for neurotic reasons.

Religious
historians studying the Dead Sea Scrolls and other documents from
around the time of Jesus (e.g., [Doherty,
The Jesus Puzzle; Potter,
The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed; Crossan,
The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant;
Harwood,
Mythology's Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus; Copan,
Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?]) have suggested that
the evidence they have found indicates that Jesus may have not been
the Son of God, fore-ordained as such from before time and space (“eternally
begotten of the Father, begotten not made”), but rather a member of
a particular tradition (the Essene tradition), and that He may have
learned from this tradition much of what He would later preach. (That
some of these documents suggest that His mother may not have been
a virgin, and that He may have had brothers simply reinforces the
view that He was not the fore-ordained Son of God.)They also cite
political reasons for why it was expedient for the early Christians
and the Roman Empire to declare that Jesus was the Son of God. These
historians then further conclude —
again using the logic of reductionism—
that Jesus was therefore simply an ordinary man, perhaps a great man,
but an ordinary one. In other words, they seized upon evidence suggesting
that Jesus was not the Son of God, to reduce Him to strictly material
terms. In so doing, they throw out all kinds of other possible alternatives:
for instance, that He was a genuine God-Realizer and a true Spiritual
Master, even if not “the Son of God”. (See, e.g., Avatar Adi Da Samraj’s
“Exoteric Christianity and the Universal Spiritual Message of Jesus”;
Paramahansa Yogananda’s “Where is Jesus Now and What is He Doing?”
in The
Divine Romance; and Swami Vivekananda’s “The Teachers of Bhakti”
in Religion
of Love.)

Abraham
Maslow, one of the leading thinkers of the “human potential movement”
re-conceptualized a wide array of mystical experiences as “peak experiences”.
He “secularized” their description, removing all references to “God”,
“Revelation”, etc., feeling that this was a requirement for their
scientific study:

But
it has recently begun to appear that these “revelations” or mystical
illuminations can be subsumed under the head of the “peak-experiences”
or “ecstasies” or “transcendent” experiences which are now being
eagerly investigated by many psychologists. That is to say, it
is very likely, indeed almost certain, that these older reports,
phrased in terms of supernatural revelation, were, in fact, perfectly
natural, human peak-experiences of the kind that can easily be
examined today, which, however, were phrased in terms of whatever
conceptual, cultural, and linguistic framework the particular
seer had available in his time.

But
by removing all such theistic references, he permanently reduced his
studies to materialistic, brain-based explanations. The underlying methodology
—
using the logic of reductionism—
is: If something can be explained
in purely brain-based, materialistic terms, then it should be explained that way! In this traditional humanist
view, “Realizations of a Greater Reality” are not different in kind
from the chemically based “high” that runners get. The Ultimate Realizations
are thereby reduced to mere “experiences”.

Avatar
Adi Da Samraj decries such reductionism, and points to the danger to free
inquiry represented by the current political empowerment of such reductionism,
comparing it to the way in which the Catholic Church controlled the thoughts
and the investigations of all the people who were under the thumb of the
Church-State:

There
is a difference between scientific materialism and science as
a discipline. Science as a discipline is a form of free enquiry
that is not supposed to predetermine results or superimpose a
point of view on reality apart from the investigation of reality.

Scientific
materialism, however, is a philosophy. It is not science, although
it tends to be associated with the scientific movement. It is
an ancient philosophy, the philosophy of materialism. It is a
reductionist philosophy. It reduces reality to what is called
“materiality”, and it wants to base all notions of reality on
that philosophical presumption. . . .

Recently
some of us were playing the game called “Trivial Pursuit”. One
of the questions was something like “In 1975, what did eighteen
Nobel laureates proclaim had no basis in fact?” The answer was
astrology. . . . When these Nobel laureates got together and declared
that astrology has no basis on fact, they had not involved themselves
in an investigation of astrology to the point of determining that
astrology has no basis in fact. They were predisposed to
claim that astrology has no basis in fact. They are philosophically
disinclined to have anybody investigate the matter, to have anything
to do with it.

What
is the purpose of this proclamation then? To get people to stop
having anything to do with astrology. That is its entire purpose.
It is a rather political purpose. . . .

What
is this but a State-based philosophy that decides what you can
do, think, even investigate? . . . It is generally claimed that
the scientific view is superior somehow to movements that previously
dictated what people can do, think, or investigate, such as the
Catholic church in the West, which once held — and still does
hold in some places — control of the State and determined what
was appropriate to believe, think, or investigate. Was it not
only recently that the Pope declared that Galileo was right? Hundreds
of years later! At the time when Galileo was alive, the Catholic
church was in charge of politics generally and told people that
they could not believe that the Earth is not the center of the
universe, for example. It was not permissible even to investigate
the matter.

Now
people of the scientific materialist faction have gained the power
of the State, but they are doing the same thing again. [Scientific
materialism] is just the new official religion. . . .

At
the leading edge of science, particularly in the realm of physics,
the discoveries, the theories tested, and so forth are suggesting
that reality is of a different nature than could possibly be described
as [merely] material. Having come to such a point of view, scientists
are finding themselves in a difficult situation because science
takes place in the world of scientific materialism.
Much of what the leading edge of physics and of science in general
is proposing and also discovering does not square with scientific
materialism. Therefore, science has again become the circumstance
of controversy and conflict.

If
scientists are to obtain grants of money from the State and be
legitimized by the State, anything they do must square with the
philosophy of scientific materialism. Basically that is the obligation.
. . . You may imagine that because you may live in what is called
a “free society” the politics of your society is all about free
inquiry, the freedom to investigate. You should be more sensitive
to the controlling influences that exist even in the present situation.

We
are all familiar with the kind of circumstance Adi Da Samraj is talking
about, where the “Davids” in the world can’t get a hold of enough resources
(financial and otherwise) to make the kind of impact the “Goliaths”
are making, in part because the “Goliaths” generally control the funding.
The adequate funding of alternative energy sources (over and against
the money that continues to pour into fueling the oil industry establishment)
is a currently controversial case in point.

The
new field of neuro-theology—
“the study of theology from a neuropsychological perspective” (see [D'Aquili
and Newberg, The Mystical Mind; Newberg,
D'Aquili, and Rause, Why God Won't Go Away] for empirical results)
is another example of Avatar Adi Da Samraj’s point about suppression
of “free inquiry” by a society that is already given over to the viewpoint
of scientific materialism. By studying the brain patterns of interesting
groups (such as meditating Franciscan nuns and Buddhist monks), a small
number of scientists are arriving at some controversial results . Here
is how one news article recently reported this research:

The
tension between science and religion is about to get tenser, for
some scientists have decided that religious experience is just
too intriguing not to study. Neurologists jumped in first, finding
a connection between temporal lobe epilepsy and a sudden interest
in religion. As V. S. Ramachandran of the University of California,
San Diego, told a 1997 meeting, these patients, during seizures,
“say they see God” or feel “a sudden sense of enlightenment”.
Now researchers are looking at more-common varieties of religious
experience. Newberg and the late Dr. Eugene d’Aquili, both of
the University of Pennsylvania, have a name for this field: neuro-theology.
In abook
to be published in April,
they conclude that spiritual experiences
are the inevitable outcome of brain wiring: “The human
brain has been genetically wired to encourage religious beliefs.”

Even
plain old praying affects the brain in distinctive ways. In SPECT
scans of Franciscan nuns at prayer, the Penn team found a quieting
of the orientation area, which gave the sisters a tangible sense
of proximity to and merging with God. “The absorption of the self
into something larger [is] not the result of emotional fabrication
or wishful thinking,” Newberg and d’Aquili write in “Why
God Won’t Go Away.”
It springs, instead, from neurological events, as when the orientation
area goes dark. . . .

If
brain wiring explains the feelings believers get from prayer and
ritual, are spiritual experiences mere creations of our neurons?
Neuro-theology at least suggests that spiritual experiences are
no more meaningful than, say, the fear the brain is hard-wired
to feel in response to a strange noise at night.

Sharon
Begley, “Searching for the God Within: The way our brains are
wired may explain the origin and power of religious beliefs.”
Newsweek, January 29, 2001

Now
what is most interesting is the scientific materialist “twist” —
actually, a full 180 degree turn! —
that the reporter gives to the scientist’s findings. We’ve highlighted
the relevant sections, in which her reading of their work is that “spiritual
experiences” originate solely in the brain. Thus they do not
represent evidence of a God or a Greater Reality; rather, they point
in the opposite direction, since they deconstruct a primary source of
evidence people point to for validating the existence of God and a Greater
Reality.

But
—
in fact —
the point of the books reporting
these studies is quite the opposite, as indicated by the title of one
of them: “Why God Won’t Go Away”. The focus of the work is on how
the mind experiences the Greater Reality. The scientists
go to great lengths to demonstrate neurologically that the usual reduction
by scientific materialism of spiritual experiences to “hallucinations”,
“wishful thinking”, etc. is wrong.
That is, they compare the areas of the brain used and the nature of
the brain activity during “wishful thinking” and during meditation,
and find that completely different
areas of the brain are being activated. And so they go on to declare
that the mystical experiences of the subjects:

were
not the result of some fabrication, or simple wishful thinking,
but were associated instead with a series of observable neurological
events . . . In other words, mystical experience is biologically,
observably, and scientifically real . . . Gradually, we shaped
a hypothesis that suggests that spiritual experience, at its very
root, is intimately interwoven with human biology.

Despite
the emphasis on neurobiology, the book is not at all atheistic in its
approach, but makes a point of providing evidence that the experience
of Spirit has a neurobiological correlate, that is, Spirit is reflected
by the brain in a very specific and unique way that doesn’t match patterns
of self-generated experience, but rather matches the patterns that correspond
to experience of “something real”:

Andrew
Newberg, Ph.D.

We
will explore the issue of how “ultimate being” is perceived and
experienced by the human brain and mind. (p. 4)

In
fact, if the mind and brain are responsible for all of our experiences
[because we don’t have any experience except through their mediation],
then they are also the mediator for our experience of God. Thus,
it may be absolutely necessary to employ the study of the mind
and brain in order to understand fully the relationship between
human beings and God. (p. 16)

One
can no longer dismiss the description of such [mystical] states
in the world’s religious and mystical literature as “the silly
imaginings of religious nuts”. (p. 206)

It
is unfortunate that various psychological disorders are often
associated with religious or spiritual phenomena. This fact has
led to the long-standing bias in Western culture that mystics
are crazy. That they are not is attested to by their prominence
in many cultures and religious communities. Furthermore, as presented
in this book, there is increasing evidence that these [mystical]
states are associated with particular brain states. In fact, the
brain may have evolved in such a way that these experiences were
possible. When considering mystical experiences from a phenomenological
perspective, their significance as real spiritual events becomes
even more impressive. It is possible that with the advent of improved
technologies for studying the brain, mystical experiences may
finally be clearly differentiated from any type of psychopathology.
(pp. 206-207)

You’d
have to wonder, reading these passages, whether the journalist was reading
a different book!

Thus
this work comes as close as any work in the sciences to demonstrating
that there is a Greater Reality,
since here are these people in meditation with nothing changing in their
material reality, but with their brains showing all the signs of being
exposed to something that is both real and other than the material reality.
Nonetheless, the reporter begins her article with a reference to the
experience of epileptics; she then goes on to refer to studies of “more
common varieties of religious experience”, thus making the very kind
of spurious association between religious phenomena and mental disorders,
aimed at discrediting the reality of mysical experiences, that the authors
themselves decried in the passage above! She then summarized the work
of these scientists by writing, “Neuro-theology at least suggests that
spiritual experiences are no more meaningful than, say, the fear the
brain is hard-wired to feel in response to a strange noise at night.”

This
is the exact opposite of what these scientists were communicating. But
it demonstrates Adi Da Samraj's point that we live in a society that
is controlled by the viewpoint of scientific materialism, and which
seeks to reduce everything to its terms —
even that which cannot be so reduced. As Albert Einstein said, in opposition
to reductionism (presenting his own version of Occam’s razor):

And
so, what was, historically, so attractive about science —
and free inquiry altogether (over and against its historical political
predecessor, the exclusively dogmatic Church-State) —
should be allowed to come to the fore again politically:

The
scientific community must understand and acknowledge that its
positive aspect is its orientation toward free intellectual inquiry.
The old exoteric religious institutions perpetuated an “understanding”
of the physical universe that was characterized by uninterpretable
poetic mythologies and all kinds of absolutist cultic nonsense.
Fresh and direct inquiry into phenomena needed to be permitted.
That aspect of the emergence of scientism was completely positive.
The exoteric religious institutions that existed when scientism
began to appear were not founded in universal Truth or a broadly
communicated esoteric understanding of the “material” universe
and the Way of Man. They were (and remain) downtown exoteric institutions,
traditional cultic institutions, without great [Spiritual Masters]
and without universal Wisdom. In throwing away this half-baked
religion, however, we have also thrown away all psychic
inquiry into the universe and its ultimate Condition or Destiny.
Intellectual inquiry into the objective phenomena of experience
certainly has its value, but psychic inquiry into the experiential
universe is not only equally essential, it is primary, and it
is more fundamental to the individual. Indeed, such psychic inquiry
is absolutely essential for human happiness.

Avatar
Adi Da Samraj
p. 390, Scientific Proof of the Existence of God
Will Soon Be Announced by the White House!